


A Single Stumble

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Gen, Tragedy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:38:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Akielos and Vere had managed to remain on surprisingly equanimous terms for years. It had been vaguely expected that eventually one of them would ruin that out of greed or to prevent the other from making a move first. Instead, it was an accident.





	A Single Stumble

The grin that greeted Damen from across the tournament ring was casually confident. On a different face it would have been called cocky, or even taunting. Since it was Auguste, it came across as simply the expression of someone who was convinced that he would emerge victorious. 

And why wouldn't he think that? Auguste had won every bout the two of them had ever fought up until this point. Years of tournaments and public showcases of skill and joined training sessions between the Crown Princes had all only ever ended one way.

But at nineteen, Damen had finally settled into his height and his muscles and was able to fully utilise them without the clumsiness born of constantly adjusting to his own growing body. Damen had trained particularly hard over the two years since they'd last met, and had even grown in real experience by leading his own campaign in the territories frequently raided by the Vaskians. There was a reason those men who served under Damen – who'd seen enough of his abilities to overlook his relative youth – looked to him with the same kind of deference as they directed towards his father and called him the strongest warrior of their country. He'd earned that. And he thought he'd earned recognition as Auguste's equal as well, and would finally get the opportunity to prove it now.

Things would be different now than the last time they had faced off. This time Damen was sure he could win.

Amidst almost deafening cheers, the start of the fight was signalled by a blur of muscles surging into motion and the flash of a sword. 

Damen steeled himself and met Auguste's weapon with his own. He met strength for strength in a way he hadn’t quite been able to during their previous fights. If anything, Damen thought his strength was actually superior now. If he could get his full weight behind his sword there were few people he wouldn’t be able to overpower. 

Auguste's assured smile faded away as he had visible trouble bracing against Damen's swings. Clearly, he must have been surprised to be put on the back foot, especially so quickly, Damen thought, feeling a bit self-satisfied. 

Though to be truthful, Damen was slightly surprised by it as well. Not about Damen managing to force this fight close to a victory – he had come into this convinced that he _could_ win, after all – but that it had actually been fairly easy to get to this point. Damen had visualised this clash being a near-marathon battle of equals, with neither of them managing to get enough momentum over the other to press their advantage for ages, but with Damen finally managing to snatch a victory from Auguste at the end. Damen certainly hadn't thought that it would take just a few minutes to have Auguste faltering under his swings. Damen had recalled Auguste being faster and more precise than this, to the point of seeming untouchable for years. And although Father always said the Veretians exaggerated, they too seemed to be under the impression that their Golden Prince was an unrivalled warrior for good reason. 

It was enough of an unexpected disconnect that Damen made himself look beyond his own pride at being suddenly so much better than Auguste to question it. And in doing so, he couldn't help but notice that Auguste's movements looked to be growing more lax by the moment, as if he were tiring. That wasn't normal. Not this soon. Not for a seasoned fighter in his prime.

Was Auguste carrying some injury or illness? Surely Auguste wouldn't have agreed to the fight in the first place if he was. It was only a friendly exhibition fight. It would hardly be worth exacerbating an existing weakness. Especially not to Auguste, for whom winning this on the back of dozens of other wins wouldn't have mattered nearly as much as a victory would mean to Damen.

There was no request to 'stop' or 'yield' forthcoming, though, and neither did Auguste step back or lower his sword. Even if he wasn't at peak condition, Damen thought he could understand that decision. It would have been one thing to delay the fight for another time, but once the fight had already started, Damen wasn't sure his pride would have allowed him to withdraw so easily either. 

Fine. If Auguste wanted to see this out, then Damen would oblige him. 

Auguste seemed to gather himself and pushed himself forward to attack Damen again. For a minute it almost seemed like Auguste had rallied himself enough that he was going to be able to push Damen to his limits after all. But it didn't last in the end.

There was no obvious precursor to Auguste stumbling. One moment he was in the proper stance to deflect Damen's swing, and the next he had sunk to his knees. There was no time to process it. No time for Damen to stay his own hand.

The heavy blow that Damen had been aiming in the vicinity of Auguste's ribs instead impacted the side of his head.

Auguste crumpled the rest of the way to the ground. Damen immediately went to his knees beside him, reaching, hoping to offer assistance even though he was no physician.

There was a flash of red at Auguste's temple. That wasn't unexpected, for even a blunted sword could open a wound when swung with so much force. It wasn't bleeding much. Some people might have taken that as an indication that the wound was nothing worrying. It made Damen think the exact opposite. Because he'd witnessed shallow head wounds many times before in the soldiers under his command, and even personally on occasion. He had enough experience to know that there really should have been more blood.

And Auguste wasn't moving. At all. Not even his chest was heaving laboriously under his armour the way it had been moments ago.

The cheers of the crowd had died away, presumably replaced with shock to match Damen's. For a long moment, all Damen could hear was the rushing of his own blood in his ears. 

Eventually, the near-silence of dawning comprehension about what everyone was seeing was broken by a scream that Damen recognised even though he’d never heard that voice in such pain and anguish before. Part of him wanted to turn around and seek out the Veretian royal box, as if to offer comfort to the boy, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the body. 

This wasn't the first man Damen had ever killed. But it was the first time the death hadn’t been intentional. And it was certainly the first time he’d counted his victim as a friend. Damen fought not to be sick.

Damen didn’t know how long he knelt there motionless, his awareness of everything other than Auguste fading in and out. But eventually he was pulled to his feet. The sight of Auguste was replaced with Nikandros’s strained face. 

“I didn't...” Damen started to explain.

“I know,” Nikandros assured him. “It was an accident. But the Veretians clearly don't want to believe that.”

Of course they wouldn’t. Friendly sparring matches usually only ended in death or maiming if the participants were inexperienced. For men of their calibre, it was practically unheard of. And for all that he hadn't meant to, Damen _had_ struck a man who'd no longer had his weapon raised. The Veretians, given the propensity towards double-dealing that Father always attributed towards them, would immediately suspect foul play. 

Even Damen had to wonder about that. Something wasn't right here.

“We have to go,” Nikandros urged. “The men are holding the Veretians back for the moment, but they outnumber us here. We have to get back across the border to gather our forces in case they retaliate.”

Damen understood Nikandros's words. He understood what he needed to do now. Damen made himself raise his sword again.

He hoped he didn’t have to strike down anyone else he knew. 

By the time they broke through the rioting masses, Damen had killed another eight men and injured several more, but thankfully none of them had been men he'd once drank and laughed alongside. However, that didn’t mean that he managed to entirely avoid everyone he knew. 

Over the heads of the soldiers who’d swarmed down into the ring, Damen was momentarily arrested by the sight of Laurent fighting bare-handed, trying to make his way down into the melee himself, barely being held back by one of his brother’s guard. 

Just as Damen had never before heard Laurent scream the way he had earlier, prior to today Damen hadn’t seen the boy’s face contorted like that either. There could be no mistaking the feeling behind it for anything short of naked and all-encompassing hatred for the man who had just stolen his brother from him. 

Damen was forced to look away as he was rushed from the arena to where a horse had been hurriedly prepared for him. But just as much as the tableau of Auguste's fallen body, the sight of Laurent's expression couldn't be shaken from Damen's mind as they rode hard south.

He remembered when Laurent used to smile at him. Damen doubted he would ever see that again.

**Author's Note:**

> So how does the world's most repugnant character manage to start a self-benefitting war when everyone's actually (surprisingly) getting along just fine? He poisons the Crown Prince before he goes out to fight the 'enemy'. >:(


End file.
